Chinese Open-Source Models Challenge US AI Lead; White House Alleges Kimi K3 Distilled Anthropic

emmanuelvivier · x · 2026-07-28

Chinese AI labs are aggressively releasing near-cutting-edge open-source models, including Zhipu's GLM 5.2, Moonshot's Kimi K3, and Alibaba's Qwen 3.8, directly challenging the closed-door strategy of US labs.

Third-party benchmarks show these models perform nearly as well as top Western models, with a strong focus on agentic coding tasks. However, this has triggered a strong political response in the US. The White House alleged that Moonshot distilled Anthropic's proprietary technology for K3, and the Commerce Secretary suggested potential sanctions against Chinese AI companies.

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